Barry Bonds Obstruction Conviction Overturned by 9th Circuit

Government's shameful witch hunt of baseball's best player comes to an ignominious end

In July 2005, nearly a full decade ago, the federal government wrapped up its most headline-grabbing steroids prosecution in history, against defendants associated with the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO). The final BALCO tally? Four convictions, on an aggregate total of six counts, netting the perps a grand total of seven months in prison combined. The underlying criminal case, wrote the San Francisco Chronicle, "seemed to end with a whimper."

But from President George W. Bush on down, the real perceived "bang" in this case was never about cracking down on illegal steroids dealers, but rather publicly shaming BALCO's most famous customer, the elite slugger (and widely hated personality) Barry Bonds.

Bonds was eventually convicted in 2011 not for illegal drugs, but for obstruction of justice, stemming from the way he answered a grand jury question about using steroids. (This is consistent with how BALCO prosecutions have gone; the longest prison sentences have come not to drug-dealers, but to people who refused to testify.) That first conviction was upheld in 2013 by a three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but then a majority of the Circuit's remaining judges voted to have a larger panel re-hear the case. That panel came back with a ruling this afternoon, and it was resounding: 10-1 against the federal government.

"Real-life witness examinations, unlike those in movies and on television, invariably are littered with non-responsive and irrelevant answers," Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in the ruling.

More from the Associated Press:

Jessica Wolfram, one of the jurors who convicted Bonds, said she couldn't help but feel it was "all a waste, all for nothing."

"Just a waste of money, having the whole trial and jury," she said.

Best quote comes from BALCO founder Victor Conte:

"Let's hope the prosecutors choose not to waste any more resources on what has been nothing more than a frivolous trophy-hunt and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars."

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I guess I’ll be happy about this. Even though Bonds is a complete toad of a human being, and I hate that era of baseball generally. What really pisses me off is what could have been. Bonds good have been one of the best 30-30 guys to ever play the game( along with GriffeyJr.). Much more interesting baseball IMO.

Could have been? He was. When you consider his ego, his poor relationships with Jeff Kent and the media, and the fact that he didn’t turn into BARRY BONDS! until 2001, it seems likely that his juicing was spurred on by getting snubbed for the 2000 MVP. And if you simply take 01 – 07 and throw them in the toilet Bonds is still one of the best OF’s of all time, and possibly the best power/speed combo in history.

and that’s the shame of it, not just with Bonds but with Clemens, too, and to an extent McGwire. Bonds and Clemens were already future Hall guys without the juice and Mac was a home run machine from his rookie year. The latter just had issues staying healthy.

No. Not only no, but hell no. There’s more to being a great ball player than hitting home runs and being a dick. Bonds had great speed before he started juicing, but never had the defensive skills to be in that category.

He was a shitty defender after he got huge from the roids because they destroyed his speed and also made him kind of awkwardly sized.

All of this is pointless because the real reason Bonds isn’t baseballs best player is because of the steroids. If it hadn’t been for the steroids he never would have even sniffed the all time home run crown and probably would have basically been a worse version of Willie Mays – Mays with less power and worse defense basically, though his defense was still very good early in his career.

Also, I think you have to scale by era to decide who the ‘best player’ is. Bonds was in an era with a shitload of home runs because of steroids, so if you scale Bonds’ numbers to consider how many 500-700 home run hitters played in his era, he definitely shouldn’t be considered the best.

Willie Mays was better compared to his contemporaries than Bonds was compared to his. For that matter, Babe Ruth used to hit more home runs than half the teams in the American league.

This number was ridiculous; it was more home runs than any other team in the American League hit during that season?and only the Philadelphia Phillies (with 64) managed to clear Ruth in the National League!

One team in baseball had more home runs than he had. Barry Bonds can suck a dick.

Wow, reading the opinion really makes it obvious what an immensely ridiculous decision this was. In two hours of testimony, Bonds said a grand total of one paragraph which the decided obstructed justice, and that paragraph is below:

I’ve only had one doctor touch me. And that’s my only personal doctor. Greg, like I said, we don’t get into each others’ personal lives. We’re friends, but I don’t?we don’t sit around and talk baseball, because he knows I don’t want? don’t come to my house talking baseball. If you want to come to my house and talk about fishing, some other stuff, we’ll be good friends. You come around talking about baseball, you go on. I don’t talk about his business. You know what I mean?

That’s what keeps our friendship. You know, I am sorry, but that?you know, that?I was a celebrity child, not just in baseball by my own instincts. I became a celebrity child with a famous father. I just don’t get into other people’s business because of my father’s situation, you see.

That last paragraph got him an obstruction count because he was ‘evading’ the question. As the decision points out, how can anyone claim this was intentional obstruction of justice just because he rambled a little bit? In two hours of testimony, you’re always going to get at least one rambling non-answer.

He also led the league in OPS+ 4 times, HR’s 4 times, runs twice, and was in the top-10 in WAR 8 times. Jim Leyritz was a decent player and a good utility guy. Reggie Jackson is one of the top players of his era and a deserving HOF’er.

Pete Rose can suck a giant, fat dick. I drove past Jonathan’s Cafe in Franklin Ohio every day on my way to school and everybody’s day knew what went on in there. Those fuckers were crooked and everyone knew Pete was in there betting on baseball (seeing as his Lambo with “4192” was parked car it front all the damn time). He signed the lifetime ban and I hope he gets into the HOF about 48 hours after he dies but not a minute earlier.

I hate him so much. He ruined not only baseball for me but many things I believed about honesty and integrity. I grew up a Reds season ticket holder from the time I was 5 until the day after Pete accepted the ban. I didn’t go to a MLB game for nearly a decade after that.

Sorry for all the typos. Few things generate such a visceral reaction as Pete fucking Rose. I actually start hearing the fight song from Kill Bill when I hear his name. And I started to black out from the rage when I was typing.

Barry Bonds won 7 MVP awards (and was top-ten 6 other seasons), led his league in Wins Above Replacement 6 times, (and was top ten an additional 10). I am comfortable in saying there was no better baseball player between 1990-2004.

shit- Ty Cobb. Nevermind. it’s ty cobb. Something about being a generally awful person makes me forget him. But- statistically, he might be the best that’s ever been and best there ever will be. (other than Roy Hobbs.)

Stories of Cobb’s racial intolerance were well-documented. In 1907 during spring training in Augusta, Georgia, a black groundskeeper named Bungy, whom Cobb had known for years, attempted to shake Cobb’s hand or pat him on the shoulder. The overly familiar greeting infuriated Cobb, who slapped him and chased him from the clubhouse. When Bungy’s wife tried to intervene, Cobb turned around and choked her until teammates pried his hands off her neck. In 1908 in Detroit, a black laborer castigated him after he accidentally stepped into some freshly poured asphalt. Cobb assaulted the laborer on the spot, knocking him to the ground. The ballplayer was found guilty of battery, but a friendly judge suspended his sentence. Cobb paid the laborer $75 to avoid a civil suit.

Apparently he did mellow out by the 1950s, saying nice things about Jackie Robinson.

“Certainly it is okay for them to play. I see no reason in the world why we shouldn’t compete with colored athletes as long as they conduct themselves with politeness and gentility. Let me say also that no white man has the right to be less of a gentleman than a colored man; in my book that goes not only for baseball but in all walks of life.”

Just three months before the three men attacked him in Detroit in 1912, Cobb assaulted a New York Highlanders fan at Hilltop Park in New York City. The fan, Claude Lueker, was missing all of one hand and three fingers on the other from a printing press accident, but he spent the entire game heckling the Detroit players. After enduring taunts that were “reflecting on my mother’s color and morals,” Cobb reported in his autobiography, the Georgia native had had enough. He jumped the rail along the third-base side of the field and climbed 12 rows of seats to get to Lueker, whom he slammed to the ground and beat senseless. Someone screamed for Cobb to stop, pointing out that the man had no hands. “I don’t care if he has no feet!” Cobb yelled back, stomping Lueker until park police pulled him off. American League president Ban Johnson, who was at the game, suspended Cobb for 10 days.

Teddy Ballgame. Dude missed out on the prime years of his career due to military service as a Marine Corps fighter pilot and still compiled ungodly numbers.

And the most impressive pitching and hitting records in baseball are Nolan Ryan’s 5,714 career strikeouts and Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak, respectively. Nobody will ever come close to breaking either.

Jurors are told they have an “obligation” to convict if a law is broken, by both the judge and prosecutor. And the juror selection process, especially in a high profile case which gets a lot of pre trial publicity, is essentially designed to weed out anybody who knows otherwise.

You are a moral agent. If you believe the law is wrong, you have a moral duty to nullify it. The only thing that conflicts with that duty, that will get you any sympathy from me, is if there’s some actual danger to yourself.

But there isn’t in the US. There’s nothing that will be done, nothing that *can* be done, to threaten you.

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